


Does My Ass Look Better in Microfiber?

by thenthekneehits



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Doctor Rhett, M/M, Nurse Link, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenthekneehits/pseuds/thenthekneehits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So Link might look at this doctor sometimes, but it’s not like he likes him or anything. He’s weird and always has his eyes set too low.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Does My Ass Look Better in Microfiber?

Link knocked on the frame of the head nurse's open doorway, just to catch her attention before walking in.

Stevie raised her head. "You'll be following Dr. McLaughlin on his rounds today, Link. Jen needs to go to a debrief up at ward 5 — the collaboration increase thing," she informed him, handing over a thin stack of forms.

"We know they just want an excuse to commandeer use of our new conference room and bigger coffee cups!" Link hissed. He was _onto them_. He'd seen their ant-sized cups, ain't no way he was going to deal with running out of proper mugs because the idiots up at 5 had thought that it was a great idea to try and cut down on the staff's coffee intake and buy tiny cups a few years back. They should suffer the consequences. "And gosh, really? I've got Mr. Wilson in 6-2, you know what he did yesterday when Lizzie-"

"Chase can cover that if it becomes an issue."

"Wouldn't it be better to... _prevent_ the issue?" Link suggested, only a little timidly.

"No one else can spare time for the rounds of your rooms today, Link. And it's Saturday, so are you sure Mr. Wilson needs to shower?"

"Oh, yeah, guess not."

"It's all sorted then. I'd suggest you catch Jen quick if you want her to keep your concerns in mind for the debrief."

" _She knows the concerns!_ Everyone's concerned!"

"I'm pretty sure it's just you, Link," Stevie teased with a small smile. But she was wrong. Everyone cared about coffee. If they didn't, something was _wrong_ with them.

***

Weekends meant a single doctor instead of a horde of them, but it also meant that the rounds took longer. Hopefully Lizzie and Becca would be able to handle the extra load from Jen's absence. There was nothing Link could do to hurry a doctor along and help the girls. He could only follow and hope it ended quickly.

Dr. McLaughlin was the weekend doctor, but Link only ever saw him in passing, never having joined the weekend rounds. He wasn't sure how it'd never happened, really — he'd worked here for months. Jen really liked doing the rounds and Link didn't particularly care for them, so...

He'd seen the doctor in the break room occasionally, but they never seemed to take breaks at the same time, one always coming in as the other came out. McLaughlin was easy to spot wherever he was, towering over the rest of the staff, bending his head a bit whenever he came through the low doorway of the nurses' office as Link sat at a desk in the corner and smiled to himself for no reason in the middle of typing.

That was happening right now. Just, this time Dr. McLaughlin bore his eyes into Link rather than wherever it was he usually looked, not allowing Link to give him a mere fleeting glance in the midst of work like he would normally do. "Neal?" he called.

"Yep," Link responded and got up from the desk, grabbing the files he'd been given. "Link's fine," he prompted with a smile when he reached the other man.

McLaughlin's brow furrowed. It was a fairly impressive brow. "What link?"

Link was surprised, he had to say. (Well, think.) Everyone at the ward called him Link, never Neal. He presumed the doctor would have heard his name at some point, even if they hadn't talked to each other. There weren't so many nurses at the ward that it would be hard to learn everyone's name.

"My name. Link. My name's Link."

"Cool name. Stevie just said Neal. Wasn't sure if it was your first or last name," Dr. McLaughlin mused.

"You still...recognized me, though?"

The doctor coughed. "Yeah, she, uh, she gave a description."

Oh yeah. "I guess 'the dark-haired and four-eyed _guy_ ' is enough of a description. There's just me and Chase after all. I forgot." Two male nurses, couldn't be too hard to spot the right one.

"Yeah, some'in' like that. Shall we?" McLaughlin gestured to the low doorway, and Link got out first, but immediately turned to look behind himself just to see how dorky the tall doctor looked as he hunkered out. McLaughlin's eyes snapped up from the low level they'd been set at and he seemed embarrassed as he caught Link looking. He probably knew he looked dumb whenever he used that doorway. Was he self-conscious?

It was a little bit cute, maybe, but Link wasn't dwelling on _that_.

He stood on Dr. McLaughlin's left side, as you do, and the doctor began to ask questions about 5-1 as they walked down the hallway, his hands resting near the keyboard of the wheeled computer.

No ring.

_Stop it!_

Link was not becoming a gay male nurse cliché. He would not fall for the sexy, bearded, totally straight doctor with over-done hair. No.

...His hair definitely did look like it was getting a lot of attention though—

Gosh. No.

"You better fix that face before we go in, sourpuss," came a sprightly command.

Link realized he was either grimacing or scowling — or both — and quickly schooled his features.

The doctor was looking down at him with a smirk on his face. He was definitely a stupid dork. His stupid teeth looked small in his stupid mouth. Also, why was he so tall?

Link opened the door to room 5 and let the doctor lead the way. The guy's ass was probably totally flat under the long white coat and so Link was in no way disappointed that he couldn't take a look at it.

***

"Coffee?" Link suggested, handing over an empty, wonderfully large mug to the doctor as he grabbed another for himself. They were taking a short break before going in the last few rooms.

"Oh, no thanks. I've got some chia seed kombucha," McLaughlin replied, pulling out a bottle from the staff fridge.

Anyone that denied coffee went straight onto Link's _List of People I Probably Won't Get Along With_. Dr. McLaughlin was definitely a creep. _Chia seed kombucha?_ The thing looked like an explosion of — ew, he was just chugging it right down! What was wrong with him?!

McLaughlin kept his head tipped back and licked his lips once he'd raised the bottle off of them. A few drops dribbled from the mouth of the bottle onto his beard, and the man jerked, letting out an "oops" and a chuckle. He carefully recapped the bottle while attempting to catch the juice on his chin with his tongue, but it was out of reach and he just looked ridiculous. There was a tiny chia seed that kept sinking further into the depths of his beard in the process.

Link shook his head. _No way._ Luckily he wasn't attracted to dorks. Otherwise the doctor's whole...outward shebang may have led to some dangerous circumstances. It was a good thing his personality was weird. Link was all for personality.

The wide-eyed smile that the doctor gave him once he'd risen victorious over a single chia seed just cemented his dorkiness.

When Link somehow ended up going on a rant about ward 5 and coffee cups, and got back a squinty-eyed version that radiated kindness, it was _no better_.

***

Since Link did Saturday's rounds, it made sense for him to do Sunday's too, saving the ages that it would take to fill Jen in on everything.

At a bit past 8 he got called into General Surgery, where he had to assist in the process of getting a difficult patient back to the surgical inpatient ward. The patient wouldn't agree to go with unfamiliar nurses, so they'd had to call Link from 4 to actually come over and calm her down. Link had to switch to a microfiber uniform to get into GS, which was a pain — and by the time he was wheeling the patient's bed into his ward, it was 9 o'clock and Dr. McLaughlin should be waiting to start his rounds. Link didn't have time to change again. They weren't allowed to wear microfiber in the inpatient wards unless they had an allergic reaction to the other fabric, but Link didn’t care.

"Jen?" McLaughlin called from the doorway of the office less than 60 seconds after Link had passed through it. His voice sounded funny and he didn't bother stepping in this time. The casual use of Jen's name reminded Link that the man had never ended up calling him by his first name the day before.

"Nah, it'll be me again," Link announced. He hadn't even sat down yet.

"Oh, cool." Wow, no need to sound _that_ excited. Was the doctor that disappointed that he was stuck with Link again? Link had thought he'd done well. Kept his mouth shut when it needed to be shut, answered the guy's questions, asked only a few appropriate ones back...and that one time he got lost in the sharpness of the doctor's massive eyes as he leaned over a patient right next to Link, that hadn't even lasted that long!

Link scoffed nigh-silently as he took his place at the doctor's side. It earned him a raised eyebrow from the tall man, but instead of explaining himself Link just walked on.

"You walk too fast. I need to wheel this computer along, you know," McLaughlin remarked, sounding irritated, and, what? The guy was turning out to be an a-hole!

Link swivelled around and the doctor's eyes snapped up to his face. "You could just say so, no need to get that mad," Link countered, his voice lowering to a mutter without his consent. The guy was intimidating.

"I did say so."

"You could've said it nicer!"

"What are you, a five year-old girl?"

"I'll have you know I worked over at pediatrics for _years_ and five year-old girls are very brave."

The doctor huffed, but his features softened. "Yeah, guess so."

Maybe he had kids, despite the lack of a ring. Divorces weren't uncommon at all, and the man looked to be in his thirties. Link had nothing against single dads, though. He liked kids. He could be a new mama.

Heh. _Mama._ Not exactly.

"Why are you mouthing 'mama' right now?"

Dang it.

The doctor chuckled. "You're weird, Link."

_He was one to say!_ ...But at the magic word, Link couldn't help the spreading of a wide smile on his face. He may have giggled a bit too.

They had a new patient in room 4, Ms. Lendback. She was a bit delirious so they'd put her into a single room — it was better for the other patients, and they'd had a free room to spare. Last night she'd insisted that Link was a doctor. Not an uncommon thing for the elderly to assume, though.

What she assumed today was something else.

"Hello, Ms. Lendback, good morning. I'm Doctor McLaughlin, this is Nurse Neal. We'll need to check that stomach."

"You doing good this morning, Ms. Lendback? How was breakfast?" Link asked.

"Oh, Mrs. Neal, they said the food was going to be soft, but I just couldn't get it down, and my stomach..."

"Yep, Miss, we'll get right on fixing that. You'll be better in no time," Dr. McLaughlin intercepted, his tone a little too humorous. Link was mostly just stunned.

She called him Mrs. Neal another two times, and McLaughlin's face got increasingly worse at keeping its composure, the doctor sending Link teasing glances from the side of his eye.

As they were leaving, Ms. Lendback thanked "Dr. and Mrs. Neal". Link burst out in laughter, and so did the doctor, so much so that his whole face turned red for a minute.

***

After room 8, McLaughlin said he needed to go and talk shop with a doctor over at ward 6 real quick, so Link drank his coffee alone. Well, more alone than last time. It's not like the doctor drank coffee to begin with. Gosh, that was still weird and unacceptable. Link should just focus on that. He'd wake up in the morning, walk into the kitchen, and the doctor would already be up, his hair down (what did it look like down?), drinking his stupid chia seed kombucha...but he'd have turned on the coffee maker just for Link anyway, and he'd look at him with those slightly narrowed puppy eyes, expecting a reward, and _Link would give it_ —

***

"Does Dr. McLaughlin have kids?" Link asked Becca as she came into the break room. Not straight up! After an acceptable amount of time had passed. He had pretty much given up on his dignity after a good 7 minutes of fantasizing about a domestic future with a tall, bearded doctor, so he didn't even bother prefacing the question.

"How would I know? I doubt it, though," she said with a smirk.

"Why?"

"Just, you know, considering."

"Considering what?"

She snorted and chugged her lukewarm coffee, heading out.

Dr. McLaughlin came in soon after, looking a little down, both metaphorically and literally. He sure kept his gaze low a lot. He really had to be a self-conscious guy. Or maybe it made him feel smaller. Maybe he had a fear of heights. He should be careful up there. Maybe he should come down and kiss Link.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Aye, aye, Doctor." _What did he just say._ Link's ears began to burn. He was lame. He was so lame. He burst into involuntary giggles and felt even more mortified. He should slap himself or something.

The doctor's face brightened, though, so Link felt a little happy. This was getting very out of hand very quickly.

***

_11-2 broke his glasses._ This was a new low.

McLaughlin was hovering around the absolutely shattered glasses on the floor, clearly clueless as to what to do. Weren't doctors supposed to be able to make quick decisions? "Ugh," Link elucidated on the situation.

"How good is your vision?"

"Bad," Link grumbled, and the man took a hold of his bicep. "I've got spares in my locker though, so it's cool."

"Yeah, we'll go. I'll call Jen in here real quick. Stay there." The doctor had steered Link onto a chair, like an invalid. Then he was out the door before Link could protest.

And back in again. "We're finished up here anyway," he was explaining to Jen.

"Come on, up, let's go," he prompted Link after grabbing onto his arm again.

"Huh? You and Jen can just continue the rounds. I'll go grab my glasses and be back."

"He asked about your vision, Link," Jen called out. She knew his prescription.

"It's not safe for you to walk all the way to almost the other side of the hospital!" Dr. McLaughlin asserted and pulled Link up. There was the doctor spirit.

"It is not that bad."

"I don't care, I'm not having it. This is a hospital. You'd endanger everyone else on top of yourself."

That wasn't something Link could argue with. He knew he wouldn't be able to see the end of a hallway. He glanced at Jen but couldn't see well enough to tell if her face was empathetic or not.

Dr. McLaughlin walked him all the way to the male nurses' dressing rooms in quiet. Link felt awkward about the tightly grabbing hand around his bicep, and the doctor's heated aura never dissipated. He was making way too big of a deal out of this.

The locker room was completely empty due to the strange time of day, and Link had a fleeting thought of _thanking_ the doctor for his troubles as he rummaged his locker for the spare glasses, but this wasn't porn and Link wasn't an idiot. The doctor patiently waited right behind him the whole time.

"Ah," Link announced as he found the glasses. "Luckily I bought two pairs of glasses last time, so the prescription's right and everything." He put them on and turned back to the doctor, who raised his head to meet Link's eyes.

A smile appeared on McLaughlin's face. "I like them. They look good on you, Link."

Link giggled. He couldn't help it, okay? "Thanks," he breathed out.

"I like them more than the other ones, actually. You look good, Link. With the squares." The doctor sounded very matter-of-fact, but it felt like something about his tone was a tiny bit off.

Link was ready to just explode into awkward giggles, he knew it, but he managed to gain some amount of control over himself and only let out another few breathless giggles before thanking the doctor again.

"What's your name?" Link blurted out once they were back in the hallway.

"Rhett McLaughlin. You can call me Rhett if you want to. I don't get the whole hospital hierarchy thing anyway."

***

Link was walking to the parking lot at 3 PM, planning to head to the grocery store on his way home. As he got to the main entrance, he bumped into McLaughlin, the man coming from the direction of the doctors' dressing rooms. He looked stupidly good in a stupid blue button-down.

"Don't you have work till four?" Link asked.

The doctor was a hint breathless. "Oh, yeah, nah, off early today. Got stuff."

"Okay," Link drawled.

"The flower shop closes at 3:30 on Sundays," the man felt the need to clarify at Link's tone.

Shit. Great. Of course it does. "Nice that you doctors can just slide your shifts around." Link walked out the door fast, uncaring of whether he appeared impolite. _Fuck. Get yourself together, Neal. You are not thinking about crying. You don't know this guy. It's been two days and you're attached like a gross, slimy octopus that wants to shove its tentacles in holes that this guy doesn't want tentacles—_

McLaughlin followed his quick strides easily, though, his long legs giving an advantage. "We can't, really, but there's nothing else to do today so the boss was cool with it. I'm coming in early tomorrow instead."

"You must've really pissed off your girlfriend." Was Link fishing? Why was he still fishing when _it was so obvious this guy couldn't want him_?

"No, _I didn't_ ," the doctor said emphatically. Which, wow, this guy got heated quick. Link wasn't trying to challenge his quality as a boyfriend or whatever.

"Wow, sorry," Link pressed, and got into his car. So what that he was a little dramatic. He didn't want to argue with the guy and allow him to notice that his eyes were a little moist.

From the rear view mirror, Link saw that the man trudged out of the parking lot and towards the bike shed. He'd followed Link all the way to the parking lot for no reason. _Creee-py._

Link couldn't stop thinking about it the whole way home, though. Or at home. This was ridiculous. What was so great about this guy? He drank chia seed kombucha and rode his bike to work!

Still, Link's eyes had been drawn to the man for months on end, and his interest was apparently incapable of waning, despite the guy turning out to be a bit of a weirdo. The opposite, really, if he was honest with himself.

***

When Link got to the dressing rooms at work the next morning, he was cranky, he could admit it. He'd forgotten to buy food on his way home the day before, and then he'd been too stubborn to go out again. He'd just eaten cereal three times instead. And a little ice cream. And that had just reminded him of the stupid health freak doctor _again_ instead of comforting him like it goddamn should.

When flowers fell down from the top of Link's locker and almost onto his head, he did know who they were from, _he wasn't stupid_.

And neither was _Rhett_ , it turned out. The whole bike thing ended up just being a phase, too — Rhett couldn't handle getting up so early in the morning for more than a few weeks. Link woke up before the guy and brewed them _both_ coffee before work. Rhett slapped his ass at work sometimes, which was super unprofessional, but whenever Link complained about it, the man would spout silly romantic bullcrap about how the body part had first slapped some sense into _him_. Link didn't get it.

…Until he wore microfiber again. Rhett gabbled about something semi-disturbing involving a waterfall analogy and a spherical rock. Which, he was a doctor; he should know that if somebody's ass was a sphere, they had _issues_.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr: [thenthekneehits](http://thenthekneehits.tumblr.com/)


End file.
